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Libuse Fries, Czechoslovakia

While Libuse Fries was growing up, her mother was a maid for a wealthy Jewish family near Prague, Czechoslovakia. At one time, Libuse worked with a Jew named Egon Seykorova.

Egon was later imprisoned at a ghetto in Theresienstadt. Libuse was brought up to love nature and all human beings. She thought, ”it was inhuman to take young people from their families for no reason.”

Libuse helped Egon’s sister, Erna, by giving her own identity card to Erna. When questioned by authorities, Libuse claimed her own card was lost.

When the truth was discovered, Libuse was arrested and imprisoned. She was finally released in 1945 and went on to marry Egon. At one point they left Prague because of the anti-Semitism they felt.

Libuse was granted the Righteous of the Nations award. It is said that she could not go to Yad Vashem to receive this award because Czechoslovakia did not have diplomatic relations with Isreal at the time.